Ten 2025 Leadership Trends shaped by pandemic era experiences

joseph6774
Nov 20
4 min read

In the middle of “the pandemic years" when uncertainty was at its peak, my Creation Companies partners and I reached out to 50 top CEOs and leadership experts to get a real read on where they were and what they needed. It was early 2021, and leaders were still navigating shutdowns, hybrid teams, burnout, and a massive shift in how work got done. We wanted to understand the pressure points, the gaps, and the lessons rising to the surface.

Now, looking back from 2025 through my coaching lens, it’s striking how much of what they shared has become the baseline for business today. The crisis didn’t just shake things up; it rewired what leadership needs to look like moving forward.

1. Adaptability is the cost of entry.

The pace of change hasn’t eased, not even a little. Leaders who can’t flex, learn, and adjust quickly are already falling behind. The old playbook doesn’t fit the world we’re leading in now. The ones who stay curious, stay teachable, and keep moving forward are the ones who keep their teams moving with them.

2. Soft skills are the real hard skills.

Listening, influence, clarity, and emotional intelligence are mission critical and in short supply. You can’t out-strategize weak communication anymore. The leaders who slow down enough to listen, ask better questions, and build real connection are the ones creating momentum.

3. Teams need more intentional care.

Burnout didn’t vanish; it evolved. The pace, the noise, and the constant context-shifting are still taxing even the strongest teams. Trust, connection, and alignment have to be rebuilt on and with purpose. This is where margin matters. The ideas in my Margin work (book forthcoming) keep showing up: teams perform better when they have space to think, room to breathe, and clarity around what truly moves the needle. The leaders who protect margin for themselves and their teams are the ones seeing better decision-making, stronger engagement, and steadier performance.

4. HiPos need structure and accountability.

Generic development plans are obsolete. High-potential leaders need clear role expectations, honest assessments, and coaching tied to the realities of the roles they’re growing into. The most effective companies are mapping skills to future roles, tracking readiness over time, and building long-term coaching arcs that actually prepare people for bigger responsibilities. It’s intentional, personalized, and far more effective than the old one-size-fits-all approach.

5. Scalable coaching has arrived.

Digital platforms, AI-supported tools, and blended coaching models now make real development possible at scale. Early-career and mid-level leaders get consistency , while seasoned executives work with human coaches where nuance, judgment, and lived experience matter most. It’s a smarter allocation of time and talent, and it’s raising the leadership bar across entire organizations.

6. Work rhythms are still shifting.

Hybrid isn’t a phase, it’s the operating system. Teams need clear agreements around when they come together to collaborate and when they break away for focused work. The leaders doing this well are setting intentional rhythms, creating predictable touch-points, and removing the guesswork that used to cause friction. This isn’t about where people work, it’s about how the work moves.

7. Culture is now a strategic risk.

Employees expect purpose, clarity, and a company that knows what it stands for. Culture can’t be a side project or an annual workshop. It is embedded in how leaders communicate, how decisions are made, how people are treated, and what gets rewarded. Organizations treating culture as core strategy are thriving . Those treating it as background noise are feeling it in turnover, performance, and trust.

8. Younger leaders are driving their own growth.

They’re self-funding programs, joining curated communities, and moving fast toward more responsibility. They’re not waiting on corporate permission or budget cycles to build the skills they need. They want coaching, mentorship, and clearer paths forward, and they’re willing to invest in themselves to get it. I’m seeing this firsthand with a steady uptick in self-paying coaching clients who are taking ownership of their development long before their companies do.

9. Leaders need better tools to see the whole system.

Real connection, team dynamics, and cross-functional awareness matter as much as technical skills. Leaders are leaning on clearer role maps so everyone knows who owns what, simple dashboards that show team health, regular cross-functional check-ins, after-action reviews to surface patterns, clean decision-making frameworks, pulse surveys that track engagement in real time, and coaching that helps teams connect the dots across the organization.

10. Long-tail development wins.

Organizations are done with the one-and-done workshop. They want change that sticks. The most effective development work now includes accountability, real follow-through, and steady touch-points that shape behavior over time. Leaders don’t grow in a single session. They grow through a rhythm of learning, applying, reflecting, and adjusting. The programs that honor that longer arc are the ones actually moving people forward.

The thread through all of this is simple: today’s leaders must be curious, connected, grounded, and willing to grow in public. The ones who can pair strong execution with strong humanity are the ones who will shape what comes next.